Unbound

Imperator Ar’Vahn moved with enviable grace.

Atop his Elemental steed, the man’s orichalcum armor was drenched in a dark liquid that writhed between the plates, fending off any blow that came too close while his blazing hammer laid waste to all. The ghostly flames licked across metal and chain, melting flesh upon contact. Legionnaires perished by the dozen, armor shattered and Bodies set aflame. The only thing truly saving them were the Corrupted that closed in around Ar’Vahn, a barrier of slick shadow against the Legion’s assault.

"Coward," Gabby hissed, striding forward. The Legion parted for her, falling back. “You hide behind your puppet atop his beast, shielded by ranks of the Corrupted. You don’t have the balls to face me alone.”

Ar’Vahn gave a cold smile. “Kill her.”

The Corrupted and Ironclads both rushed in, tendrils and pikes thrusting for her vitals. She swept her Brightblade across their path, shearing through their weapons before she took their heads. Notifications flickered across her vision, and she dismissed them all, focusing instead on the sea of creatures that threw themselves between her and Ar’Vahn.

A shield of flesh devoid of fear, behind which Ar’Vahn smirked atop his Elemental steed.

Gabby kicked off the earth, accelerating through the Dwarves like a wrecking ball. Brightblade scythed through the ranks of the Corrupted, killing close to fifty in a handful of seconds. More filtered in, throwing themselves in the way.

You Have Earned Points!

The notification clung to her vision, no matter how Gabby dismissed it, and was swiftly followed up by others.

500 Points Earned!

Total Points: 2,035

Only once she’d actually read them did they disappear. Gabby grimaced, her hands ripping out shadow after shadow like she was pulling weeds. She had been stockpiling the Points earned with her kills. Unlike Beef, the bonus rewards she could earn through her Dual Quest were mostly stats and not much at that—she would be better off focusing on leveling up, as infrequently as that happened now. Even if she had dumped all her points toward stat rewards, it wouldn’t have made a difference—not in this fight.

The total flickered back into her vision. “Fine!” she snapped, jabbing her Will at the display. She dumped every Point she could into a singular choice.

2,000 Points Deposited Into Enhance Racial Skills.

Remaining Points: 35

Every time Gabby had racked up enough points, she had dumped them into this same reward. The thing was, she didn’t have a Racial Skill. While she could have focused on enhancing her Authority, she also had no clue how to wield that, either. So now, she’d put five thousand points into the reward and still hadn’t received a single thing back.

And yet…

Gabby cut through another enemy—Ironclad or Corrupted, she wasn’t sure. They all blended together between golden light and endless night. Insider of her, close to where Brightblade shone at her center, there was a pressure. Whenever she added to Enhance Racial Skills, that pressure grew.

Pressure isn’t gonna win this fight. She stomped her foot. “Heliacal Blaze!”

The enemy burned up, consumed by her light.

Over the edge of them all, Ar’Vahn met her gaze.

Gabby bared her teeth. All she had were the Skills she’d learned at the foot of the Hierophant—and those were the Skills she would use to slaughter her.

“The Titan!”

Master Tier Ironclads cried out, surging through the ranks to flank Gabby. They were impressive in their mithril armor and their heavy lances. Ten Boar Knights mingled among them, as did the hefty bulk of three Orichalcum Golems. They closed in, weapons raised as Skills keened in the air. They joined, a swirl of shadow, earth, and fire that hemmed in her light.

“Night Mother!” The chant lifted up from around her as the Skills built up. “Lend us your glory! We seek the death of your vilest foe!”

They were afraid. Gabby laughed. “Get out of my way.”

Unsurprisingly, they refused. Instead, hundreds of voices called out, as earth, shadow, and flame joined into a single, calamitous strike. Gabby’s Brightblade shifted into a shield, and still she was pushed back as the attack hit. The ground crackled and splintered beneath her heels…and beyond them. A choking freeze slammed into her, and in a flash, it coated her lower body in ice, binding her in place.

Gabby barked a sharp laugh, a golden light spilling from her mouth. "I gave you a chance." Her eyes burned. “Heliacal Blaze!”

Golden fire burst around her, dissolving the ice in a rush of steam and searing through ranks of the Ironclad and Corrupted in an instant.

You Have Killed 57 Threats!

XP Earned!

The Boar Knights charged into the breach.

Gabby heard only their snorting from behind the wash of gold, but she was ready. She slapped a lance out of the way and hunched forward, right hand smashing into a rugged snout. The boar squealed, head thrashing to either side, but her armored fingers sank into its meaty face.

Its head exploded, and it dropped to the side, trapping the Knight on its back. She stomped through their chest.

That wasn’t the end of them, however. More Boar Knights stampeded through the battle, ten lances arcing with cold light. Several scored hits against her as they raced past, scraping sparks from her pauldrons and rerebraces. She grabbed at them, but they were wise to her moves—Skills blurred between them and her fingers, driving her hands away. The Boar Knights spread out, turning about to face her once again.

“Try that again,” she muttered.

“Titan! We are the Boar Spear Hold!” one of the Knights called over the din of battle. “The Night Mother has called for your death! We will deliver it.”

Gabby let golden light well up from her palms. “Show me.”

A Knight blew on a horn, and all ten of the boars charged. They flickered, their shapes distending as their speed ramped up, until their every footfall was a thunderstrike. Their lances split the air, flowing with frost vapor, and the Knights bore down on her.

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“Brightblade Crescendo,” Gabby said. “Halberd.”

The spectral fist beside her ignited with gold, and her weapon transformed itself into an axe-headed spear. It thrust outward, twenty-feet long and burning beyond flame. It skewered the first of the boars.

You Have Killed A Dire Boar!

XP Earned!

With a grunt of effort, Gabby whipped the halberd to the side. Mithril armor shattered as the first boar’s side exploded open, and she cut straight through the next.

You Have Killed A Dire Boar!

XP Earned!

She kept going, hauling her weapon in a tightening circle, and the halberd cut through everything.

Ten Dire Boars fell, split asunder, crushing several of their Knights beneath their bulk. Five of them leapt free, rolling to their feet before regarding Gabby with a new wariness. They dropped their lances and unsheathed axes from their packs.

“I thought you were delivering something?” Gabby turned in a half circle, keeping her eye on the Knights as they approached. “Or did you leave it on your pigs?”

The earth shook.

In the distance, dozens of Elementals swarmed the Legion’s lines. Their steps were all miniature earthquakes, but they were distant and focused elsewhere. Here and now, other threats appeared. Three Oricalcum Golems stomped into the field, cutting off her pathway toward Ar’Vahn.

“Big boys,” Gabby muttered. They were twice her size and covered in red-gold metal where they weren’t made of solid stone. Worse, they had mages chained to their backs.

“Glacial Cascade!”

“Smothering Cloud!”

“Softened Horizon!”

Ice fell on her in a wave, crashing against the hasty shield Gabby erected at the same time a black cloud glued itself to her head. She couldn’t breathe or see and nearly fell when the earth itself turned soft as pudding.

“Kill her now!”

Something hit her shield hard enough that it sank her another foot into the pudding earth, while the sharp bite of axes tore into her helmet and shoulders. The Golems and Knights hauled away at her, and without vision or breath, all Gabby could do was lash out blindly. She hit nothing and fell again as something the size of a stone column dropped onto her back. Gabby sank deeper into the muck.

“Cataclysm Array!”

Her vision cleared just as the earth hardened around her neck. Spears stuck out of the Golems, not so much from their orichalcum armor as from the Dwarven mages that clutched to their sides. As one, they exploded.

Spells fizzled out as their casters died, and the Golems fell over, no longer guided by a living Will. An axe dropped down on Gabby’s exposed head, but she’d had enough of that. With a roar of effort, she shattered the earth and seized the Knight’s pathetic weapon.

“No.” She climbed up out of the earth and, with a contemptuous heave, swung the Knight into two of his brethren. They exploded, their soft parts unable to hold up against their own armor.

The rest of the Knights swung at her, their strikes bleeding flame, even as the earth steadied their feet. They were fast, a lot more so than Gabby, and their attacks hit home. Her Health dipped as she met them, blow for blow, her golden weapon against theirs. They were strong.

She was stronger.

You Have Killed A Boar Knight (x7)!

XP Earned!

Enemy shattered, Gabby turned to face the rest of the field. Ironclads and the Corrupted filled her path, split between the Legionnaires and her—they kept themselves between Marzul’s puppet and her retribution. Not just defending, but praying.

”Night Mother! Heed our plea! Help us end this foul Titan!” Their Skills flashed outward, pattering against her piece of broken jungle.

“She’s not listening,” Gabby snapped, appearing before their ranks. “She’s already dead.”

“Heretic!”

The Ironclads fell back, too weak to channel real Divine power, no matter how much they prayed—but Gabby didn't let them run. She tore through them, her Brightblade turned into a reaper’s scythe as she cut them down at hip and neck. They burned with her strikes, bright enough that it banished the darkness to the periphery. Brilliant enough that the Corrupted squealed in pain. The tendrils that bound their pallid flesh dissolved.

Dozens died, hundreds. Mithril armor sundered, leaving lesser metals in puddles of slag as Gabby demolished them all.

You Have Earned—

She banished the notification. More enemies were coming—

Arms of burning stone tackled her to the earth. Gabby fell, overcome not only by their immense Strength, but by their sudden weight.

Elementals?

Two Major Elementals dragged her down, wrapping themselves around one arm and her legs. She flexed, tossing one free—but before she could do so much as kick at the other, three more leapt atop of her. She fell.

From across the battlefield, she saw them zero in on her location like bloodhounds and cut across their own people, demolishing them where they stood to reach her.

Before she could fight them off, they piled deeper. Five more. Ten. Twenty. Until she could barely breathe for the weight of monstrosity stacked upon her armored Body. They gripped her, clawing into her joints with claws like needles of ice, while jaws of something terrible pressed against her knees.

Use Your Points, Gigas.

"I don’t need them! Luminous Raiment!”

Plates of golden Mana slammed around her in a whirlwind of expanding segments. Elemental limbs were caught and crushed between the tightening sections as light hardened beyond steel or mithril. Ice, stone, shadow, and water were burnt away in golden radiance, bursting like grapes as her armor sizzled with righteous light.

Spells of shadow and flame bathed against her Raiment, but Gabby stood up, casting the Elementals away from her even as her Brightblade spun to the side. It twisted into a new shape, one she rarely used—a dagger held in a giant spectral fist. She thrust, the weapon whirling through chest and chassis, severing limbs by the dozen as they still attempted to pile atop of her.

The Elementals fell, and Points racked up at the back of her Mind. Still they didn’t stop. They grabbed onto her luminous shoulders and calves, dragging her back by sheer dint of numbers. No matter how many she killed, more appeared as if conjured.

“Pathetic, Imara.”

Gabby glared as, no more than twenty feet away, Ar’Vahn sat upon his mount. Marzul hung in his eyes, smiling from behind that stolen face.

Marzul clucked Ar’Vahn’s tongue. "How far you've fallen."

"That's not my name," Gabby snapped.

The Dwarf's features twisted, lips curling back from pearly white teeth. Black oozed from Ar’Vahn's stolen eyes. "It'll always be a part of you, woman. Until the day you die."

The earth shook, and a bloody light filled the sky to the north. Ar’Vahn’s vicious smile turned to a smirk. "Which might be sooner than you'd think."

Explosions ripped through the air, shaking Gabby with a wave of pressure, followed closely by a terrifying heat. To the north, lava geysered into the sky in streams wider than most rivers. Molten rock careened down onto the jungle, setting it ablaze as the earth shook. Again, the thunderous quakes sounded more and more like the footsteps of an enormous beast.

Ar’Vahn flung his arms wide. “Behold your demise, Imara!”

Gabby twisted, and through the press of bodies, murderous foes, and her own golden armor, she could see a mountain advancing upon them. Walking upon massive legs like an enormous crustacean, it was covered in Dwarves, Golems, and smaller Elementals as it belched more geysers of lava in all directions.

Gabby gasped. Her Analysis had to be wrong.

Name: Volantris

Type: Supreme Elemental

A roar tore from the forest, but it was shattered by the intensifying light as the volcano Elemental slammed its foot down through some unseen foe. Ar’Vahn laughed, too high-pitched to be coming from such a stocky Dwarf, as the walking volcano bore down on them all.

A face formed out of its spewing lava and dark rock. It was as alien as an insect, but bore an expression that she could interpret as easily as breathing.

It was pissed.

WHERE IS THE FIEND?